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Bargain Meat

For me, shopping isn’t fun if I don’t get a bargain. When I see antibiotic-free, naturally raised meat in our local supermarket reduced from $19.99 a pound to $9.99 a pound, I grab it.

Yesterday I stopped by and it was like my birthday. There must have been a dozen packages of prime cuts of meat, all reduced. I bought half a dozen packages and prepped them for freezing. Years ago, after much experimentation, I learned a cool trick: if meat is marinated in olive oil seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, wrapped in plastic wrap, and sealed in a Ziploc freezer bag, then tossed in the freezer, the olive oil protects the meat from dehydration.

I held back two packages of the beef rib bones for a simple braised dish. This is one-pot cooking at its best; all you need is a covered Dutch oven or high-sided frying pan. It’s a two-day process, though, to get rid of the fat. The ribs have to be cooked one day and eaten on another day. But that’s not all bad. By cooking the ribs ahead, this becomes a serve-anytime meal, and adding the vegetables at the very end gives the dish a delicious, just-cooked presentation.

Method

1. In a Dutch oven or high-sided frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Brown the ribs on all sides, then remove, and discard the fat.

2. Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the pan and brown 1 onion and 2 garlic cloves. Deglaze the pan with the water, add back the ribs, cover, and put into a 400 degree oven for 1 hour. Remove the pan, turn over the ribs, and put back in the oven for another hour.

3. Check the ribs. The meat should be tender and almost falling off the bone. If you're using short ribs, you may need to increase the cooking time another hour and you may have to add another cup of liquid.

4. Put the ribs into one container. Strain out the onions and garlic and discard. Put the braising liquid into a second container and refrigerate.

5. The next day, peel the thick layer of fat off the braising liquid and discard. In the same pan you used the day before, heat the olive oil and butter. Brown the potatoes, mushrooms, and the rest of the onions, add the ribs and the braising liquid. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the carrots, celery, broccoli, parsley, the rest of the garlic, and Brussels sprouts. Cover and simmer another 15 minutes.

6. Serve the ribs in bowls with plenty of vegetables, the braising liquid, and a fresh baguette.

In my neck of the woods there are regulars who cruse the meat section of the supermarket early in the AM just so they can discover and make off with the day’s “reduced” selection. While i am not one of the regulars, I still don’t think I have eaten a full-price steak in the last several years.

Cruising the Reduced bin at the meat counter is always on my Must list when I go to the grocery store. Sometimes it’s a bust but other times it’s a treasure trove. If not cooked that night, any finds are repackaged appropriately with my Reynolds Handi-Vac, then frozen. I had not tried the marinating trick for freezing raw meat but may in the future.

My bargain was to share half a steer from a local farmer with a neighbor. We paid $2.29 a pound period. It would have been cheaper to get the whole steer ($1.89!!) but someone else had dibs. My kitchen may be small, but I can fit a freezer in the basement.

I know, I know farms are further out from NYC. I don’t know if you can fit freezers into your basement storage areas. But if you like meat there’s nothing better than livestock carefully and respectfully raised. Maybe get your friends together and form a meat club.

Any thoughts on how much of the fat is eliminated by this method, or a resource to figure out? I’m cooking for a low sat-fat diet, and this sounds like a promising way to include beef, which I usually avoid.

I guess if it works for you…. I buy a lot of sale beef and chicken plus the occasional duck and I freeze it like we always did in my father in law’s meat market when we had a surplus– wrap well in cling wrap then a good outer wrap such as freezer paper or aluminum foil– still works at my current butcher shop. I think the marinade in oil etc is too likely to change taste and texture. The trick is to make sure it stays frozen at zero or below. Chuck P

I’d never heard about using oil to pevent dehydration in meat that is to be frozen, but my gut reaction would be to leave off the salt until cooking time. Even in the freezer, I would think that salting the meat weeks or months in advance can only hurt when it comes to keeping in the juices.

One wonders, by the way, why commercial producers of pre-frozen meat don’t use the oil trick.

Discount meat is what we call it at our house. My husband introduced me to ‘discount meat’ when we were newlyweds and while at the time I turned my nose up at it, now it is a part of my regular buying repetoire. Properly seasoned and stored, it’s a great deal.

I like meat. There. I wrote it. In my head, I’m all with the humane, sustainable, naturally-raised, antibiotic-free, etc., etc., etc. But I can’t afford it. Usually, even when I can find it in the discount bin, I can’t afford it. I put on my moral blindfold and usually go for the various mystery-sourced meats from Costco. It adds to my anguish that it usually tastes wonderful.

I once got in a cab on a Saturday morning in Washington DC to go to the airport. When I put my bag in the trunk I saw that it held 2 coolers on the verge of overflowing with meat.

When I asked the cabbie what was going on he told me that every Saturday, right after starting his early Saturday shift, he went from location to location of a particular supermarket chain and bought up all the discounted steaks.

You see, he discovered that they reduce the meat every Saturday at 4am. Since his shift started at 5am, and he had a lot of neighbors who were interested in buying discounted meat at a slight markup… well, needless to say, I don’t think he was counting on my tip to get by.

I love love love what we call “Mystery Meat”. The meat’s fine, the mystery is what will be in the bin. It can really spark my creativity when answering the question of what’s for dinner. I have learned, however, that it is necessary for me to not try to take home every deal I see, since sometimes the stuff doesn’t always make it to the freezer in time… Just have to remember that tomorrow is always another day at the Mystery Meat bin.

The other trick, for single people or people who want to cut back on the amount of meat they eat, is to cut the meat into single serving portions before wrapping and freezing.

Even with just the freezer in your refrigerator (for those of use who physically have no room for another freezer) you can get the savings of buying the discounted meat without having to eat the whole package. I regularly do this for things like chicken and sausages, which are typically sold in much larger packages than I can eat in a meal (or two).

Expect similar meat sales for the foreseeable future, a friend of mine who is a meat distributor tells me there are warehouses full of overstock. Time is running out on how long they can store it…sales galore, perhaps. We may need more recipes and suggestions!

I don’t understand. Whenever I see reduced meat, it is usually discolored and during the rare times I get meat that isn’t fresh, I can smell that there is something wrong, so I don’t use it and I return it.
What gives? How do they know what is fresh? What’s the secret?

I always look for the red (or is it orange? I’m colorblind, which sucks when you’re buying fresh veggies…) REDUCED sticker at Sam’s Club and freeze what I’m not going to use immediately in those zip-lock double freezer bags. Works a charm.

Regarding this recipe – my stovetop works, but not the oven, so I’ll try the braising step in my crockpot…

Years ago, I bought a book by Merle Ellis titled “Cutting Up in the Kitchen”. Some of you might remember that Merle Ellis is a butcher who had a syndicated TV show. His premise was that you could eat better meat for less if you knew how to cut up large primal cuts into their retail pieces.

Right now in the supermarkets, standing rib roasts are on sale for about 5 dollars a pound. Instead of buying a three or 4 bone roast, I bought an entire rib primal. Not only did I get that four bone rib roast, but with a few minutes of knife work, I got a few very thick rib eye steaks and a nice pile of ribs for braising. You don’t have to spend ton’s of money to eat well.

The key to making this all work of course is to have a freezer. I also use a Foodsaver to package the meat. Meat, fish and poultry will last fresh and without freezer burn far longer than it takes me to use it.

Dang, I wish you hadn’t told everyone our secret. I hate competition. I want to second the recommendation of the Reynold’s HandiVac device. I wrap most items in a layer of plastic wrap and then into a vacuum bag, sucked down tight. That way the item comes out of the bag easily and the bag is fresh and ready to reuse without washing. We use these bags to store bricks of cheese in the refrigerator, haven’t had a spot of mold ever. I buy 4 or 5 packages of fresh sausage when it’s on reduced price, cook them all, freeze on trays and then wrap one or two in plastic wrap and vacuum bag. Then when I want a bit of sausage for mac and cheese or pasta or pizza, it’s ready to go with a few minutes in the microwave. Get a HandiVac and collection of bags, reuse them and you won’t be sorry.